Leprosy Genome

The leprosy bacterium is the latest germ to have its genome added to the growing list of micro-organisms whose genomes have been mapped. The scientists who reported it in Nature, Vol. 409, p1007, 22 February, 2001, found that many of its genes are non-functional, which they claim explains why the bacterium can only live inside other living cells and will not grow in laboratory culture media. Scientists studying the leprosy genome claim it is an example of "reductive evolution."

Editorial Comment: Reductive it may be, but evolution it is not. Such loss of genetic information has turned a fully functioning bacterium into a partially defunct bacterium. Because of its non-functional genes, the bacterium has to absorb many nutrients that other bacteria are able to make for themselves. It cannot carry out important chemical processes that would allow it to live a more independent life. Breakdown in the human immune system also allow such bacterium to invade human cells, where they can absorb nutrients (and wreak havoc with their by-products). But this is not evolution. It is degeneration from the perfection the world was created with! It also means God did not invent disease. It is the natural penalty of degeneration from perfection.

Based on Genesis, Creation Research predicts that we will yet see many new diseases, not because Bacteria are evolving, but because, man and bacteria are degenerating and a once perfect balanced relationship has gone to the pack. (Ref. leprosy, bacterium, degeneration. prediction)